Never go back, they say. Returning to the scene of former glories, hoping to recapture the magic, is almost always a mistake. And that is certainly what it looks like this time, after a lacklustre start against less than impressive opposition. Frankly, I think you were foolish to take the job, Sir Trevor McDonald. Three point eight million against the BBC's four point eight - it is not what the fans were expecting.

Sure, you cut an impressive figure on the training ground and the younger members of the News At Ten team will be in awe of your dazzling achievements first time round - "Good evening", that was one of yours, "And finally" another - but times have changed and the days when stand-in firemen could be relied on to rescue a cat from a tree and then run over the cat on their way back to the station, giving you a zinger for the end of the bulletin, are long gone.

You have been out of the game too long, Trevor. I believe you haven't even watched any television for the past three years, preferring instead to concentrate on your academy for young newsreaders, where you get them to say - with portentous pauses between each word - things like "More problems for John Major's government, and why Percy the Parrot won't be going home for Christmas. Join us after the break". Well, those days have gone. The game is pacier these days. What is more, what you considered light-hearted items to prop up a bulletin now are the bulletin.

Only the other day, Trev, nearly half the news was devoted to the appointment of the football manager Kevin Keegan. Like yourself, Kevin is charged with reviving an ailing enterprise, in his case Newcastle United, and you would not be human if you were not slightly envious of the enormous fund of good will that has come his way. As a member of the Amalgamated Guild of Writers of Semi-Humorous Sport on TV Columns, I welcome Sir Kevin with open notebook. The BBC, I suspect, will be similarly exultant. From a Newcastle manager who would not talk to them, they have gone to one who will not shut up.

I have been pining for King Kev ever since he went awol from Manchester City, as anyone who has heard my mobile ringtone - "Al tell you, 'e's gone down in my estimation" - will testify. Away with dull aitches at the start of words, I say, let us enjoy what most commentators are dubbing "the third coming". Predictably, Sky Sports News was more excited than even I was, dispatching its top man, Ian Payne, to the north-east and broadcasting pictures from the press room at St James' Park a full 20 minutes before the messiah manifested himself.

As a result the cameras were mostly fixed on the door through which the sainted one was scheduled to enter. "This is the door that Kevin Keegan will be walking through," confirmed Payne, ratcheting up excitement levels round my gaff, which were in no way lessened by the fact that the picture remained the same, as the director seemed to have taken the opportunity for a last toilet break before the great man addressed the masses. "We're just looking at pictures of the door as we wait for Kevin Keegan to come in," said Payne. "We're told he will come in in about 30 seconds so we will keep watching the door." This was a press conference as directed by Andy Warhol and a challenge to which Payne rose manfully.

As 30 seconds turned into five minutes, he continued: "You're watching Sky Sports News. These are live pictures of a door, as we wait for Kevin Keegan and Chris Mort to come through it and sit on those seats." And lest we were in any doubt that Sky was bringing us history in the making, Payne reminded us that first news of Keegan's appointment came in a text message to Sky's man in the north-east, David Craig. "We probably all remember where we were when we first heard it," said Payne. Yes, with chronically bad timing I was standing outside the Texas Book Depository.

Helping Payne cover the pictures and fill the unforgiving minutes was something called "The Voice of Warren Barton, Newcastle United 1995-2002." The Voice's view was that, unlike the hero of Ray Davies's song Lola, Sir Kevin was the world's most passionate man. "You can see the buzz on his face," it announced, although it could not decide about Kevin's eyes. "The spark's back in his eyes and he's got a skip in his step," the Voice said at one point, later amended to "There's a glint in Kevin's eye" before finally "He looked really focused, with determination in his eyes".

And then he was back, and boy was it good to enjoy once more that exhilarating mix of good humour, common sense and - you should pardon the expression - complete bollocks.

What, for instance, was all that stuff about Geordies working hard all week and needing entertainment at the weekend? As I understand it, nobody is knocking dirty great rivets into ocean-going liners up there these days or mining coal. They are eking out a living much like the rest of us: cutting one another's hair, driving taxis, delivering pizzas to one another.

One is inclined to tell the third coming to get real, as modern parlance has it. But the day that happens is when the fun stops.